I'm a Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science, and Biostatistics in the Institute of Genetic Medicine at Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine. From 2005-2011 I was the Horvitz Professor of Computer Science and Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park. Before joining UMD, I was at The Institute for Genomic Research, where I sequenced the genomes of many bacteria, including those used in the 2001 anthrax attacks. At TIGR I was part of the Human Genome Project and the co-founder of the influenza virus sequencing project (which is when I first learned of the anti-vaccine movement). My research group develops software for DNA sequence analysis, and our (free) software is used by scientific laboratories around the globe. I did my B.A. and M.S. at Yale University, and my Ph.D. at Harvard University, and I have published over 200 scientific papers. Follow me on Facebook or Twitter (@stevensalzberg1), or just subscribe to my alternate blog, http://genome.fieldofscience.com.

The great northwest of the U.S. is known for its natural beauty. It’s also a high-tech region with a highly educated public – not exactly the kind of place one would expect to fall for the anti-science rhetoric of the anti-vaccine movement.

But it has. The anti-vaxxers have convinced a frighteningly high number of parents in Washington State to withhold vaccines from their children. A story in The Seattle Times last year reported that

“Washington [state] parents are choosing not to vaccinate their kindergartners at a rate higher than anywhere else in the country.”

When the vaccination rates drop, everyone becomes more vulnerable to infectious diseases. When more than 90% of the population is vaccinated, we have “herd immunity” – this means the disease can’t spread because there aren’t enough susceptible people in the community. So the high rate of vaccine refusal in Washington makes it easier for whooping cough (and other diseases) to spread.

The media has been complicit in spreading some of the anti-vaccine misinformation. Sometimes it comes straight from the media itself, such as the CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson, who has repeatedly and persistently reported on the purported link between vaccines and autism long after such a link was widely discredited.* Other times it comes from talk shows, magazines, or even airline advertisements that provide a platform for anti-vax celebrity doctors such as Jay Gordon (who gained fame as Jenny McCarthy’s son’s doctor) and “Dr. Bob” Sears, who has published his own “alternative” vaccine schedule in a book filled with anti-vaccine nonsense. These characters continue to claim, at every chance they get, that vaccines cause autism (as Gordon has said, repeatedly), or that they cause other harms, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. They use their medical degrees and their faux concern “for the children” to frighten parents into keeping their kids unvaccinated.

And now we learn that the U.S. is in the midst of the worst whooping cough epidemic in 70 years. One of the most hard-hit states is Washington, which the CDC just announced (on 20 July) has suffered 2,520 cases so far this year, a 1300% increase over last year. This is the highest number of cases reported in Washington since 1942. This plot of the number of cases this year compared to last year shows the dramatic rise in infections:

The figure above shows the number of confirmed and probable pertussis cases reported, by week of onset in Washington, during January 1, 2011-June 16, 2012. The gray area shows weeks for which data is still incomplete. The right side of the plot shows cases for last year. Source: Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Making things worse, it seems, is an increase in cases among children aged 13-14. Children get a booster shot at age 11-12, but the new outbreak indicates that the effectiveness of the booster may not last very long. The dramatic increase in whooping cough this year also suggests that the bacterium that causes it, Bordetella pertussis, is mutating to make the vaccine less effective. Nevertheless, the CDC emphasizes:

“Vaccination continues to be the single most effective strategy to reduce morbidity and mortality caused by pertussis. Vaccination of pregnant women and contacts of infants is recommended to protect infants too young to be vaccinated.”

This good advice is seriously undermined when misinformed doctors such as “Dr. Bob” Sears directly advise pregnant women not to get the whooping cough vaccine, as he did in the Huffington Post. (Hint: it’s a good rule to be very skeptical of celebrity doctors who go by their first name.)

I should also point out that whooping cough is a national problem, not just Washington State’s. The U.S. has had over 17,000 cases this year, putting it on track for the worst year since 1959. The highest rate of infection in the nation is in Wisconsin (which has also been hit hard by anti-vaccine effects), followed by Washington and Montana. 10 deaths have been reported, mostly in infants who were too young to be vaccinated. For all this, we can thank the anti-vaccination movement.

*Note: Following a complaint from Sharyl Attkinson, this story has been updated to clarify my view of her vaccine-related reporting.

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Don’t worry folks. Salzberg is merely a tool, writing hit-pieces for the Allopathic- Big Pharma industry. Hard to take a man credible in a science based argument when he uses words like “zealot” and other inflammatory language.

Pro vaccine people seem to act as if all the research has already been done, or as ‘medicalstudent” wrote, He/she has “read everything there is written about vaccines”. BS. This subject is not a closed book. More research on effectiveness needs to be done. The heard immunity “defense” is a complete logical fallacy, and falls on its face with current public health understanding.

Yes, there are anti-vaccine ‘kooks’, which make it all so easier for hitmen like Salzberg to go on the attack. And of course anyone who is anti-vaacine is “not a credible source”, but a tool/ a schill for the industry like Salzberg is completely credible.

A treatise on ‘herd immunity’: http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/herd-immunity-flawed-science-and-mass-vaccination-failures

It is sad that parents have to deal with nonsense like this link on herd immunity…but anyone paying attention will notice from the first sentence that the clearly doesn’t understand what herd immunity is…..and the article goes down hill from there….

Characterize this link as mostly harmless: pretty much any adult can figure out that it is garbage.

Yup, it’s the great unvaxed masses. That has to be it. There can be no other rational, logical conclusion. Now, we can win this argument. Put to bed any notion that we, the great vaccine defenders, can lay to rest any notion that we, and only we, occupy the scientific high-ground. And finally saturate the countryside with vaccines. Thereby, removing all human suffering. End poverty. Repair our ruptured economy. Bring peace to mother earth . . .

Hold on a sec, I need to stuff a few GMO snacks in my mouth. There that’s better. Where was I? Oh yeah. . .

All we need is to make sure that 75% . . . No, 82% . . . No, 88.6987%, Right? No, no, no, it’s 90%. Yep, definitely 90%! Yep, that’s it. No, wait, it’s higher than that. I know I have that study around here somewhere. Yea, that study that actually tested all other conceivable factors, performed a detailed analysis, replicated the analysis among multiple populations and proved conclusively that herd immunity can be conferred in the population if 95% of it is vaccinated.

Where is that study? . . .

Oh, yeah . . . *It doesn’t exist!*

Quick question: Steven, (can I call you Dr. Steve?) No? OK, Dr. Salzberg it is. (Hey, you’ve earned it.) Is this article some form of new esoteric brand of comedy? Are you moonlighting as a PR agent for Merck? (No question that Forbes has some financial tie with Merck given their whitewash of the Mumps vaccine whistle-blower suit).

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed this article. It’s such rich zealotry. Lush theater. It’s like watching the guy playing Alan Rickman in the first Die Hard. You play the psuedo-science heavy with such vigor.

Another quick question: Now that you have dropped the hammer of silence on Dr. Bob, and Dr. Jay Gordon and I can stop listening to them now, when do I ignore the hundreds (heck, it may be thousands) of peer-reviewed studies published in mainstream medical journals that draw a link between vaccines and harm and lack of efficacy?

Overwhelming evidence you say? In favor of vaccine safety? You could take the research questioning vaccine safety and efficacy and paper the walls and floors of the Forbes headquarters and you still would have enough paper left over to cover the American Academy of Pediatrics headquarters in one of those tents they use to fumigate for wood-destroying insects.

So, what happens if you have a real scientific controversy? Vaccines are safe and effective. No their not. You test. You don’t reverse presumption and mandate vaccination without limit. You test. And test again. You err on the side of under-prescribing.

Truth is we don’t have comprehensive forensic data on the outbreak. We do know that there are a TON of vaccinated kids with Whooping Cough. Vaccines either work, or they don’t. Don’t mistake that fishbowl you have your head wedged in for the Magic Mirror On The Wall.

And leave the truth-telling to those of us who actually believe in the empirical and observable, and not what we are paid to believe by Big Money.

This blog post is completely out of step with what has been broadly reported in the media and by CDC about the potential cause of recent Pertussis outbreaks. Just today Wall Street Journal has CDC on-the-record acknowledging that they do not know the cause of the outbreak and that it does not appear to be related to a drop in vaccination rates. “Washington state has one of the highest exemption rates in the nation. But the CDC said that does not appear to be a major factor in the outbreak, since most of the youngsters who got sick had been vaccinated.” http://tinyurl.com/c3lchvy

This article in The Seattle Times, dated July 19, expounds on the research looking at the current outbreak in Washington State. “Vaccines have done a good job in protecting against pertussis, but our vaccines are not perfect,” Schuchet [CDC] said during a Thursday teleconference with state Health Secretary Mary Selecky. “They don’t last as long as we would like them to.” http://blogs.seattletimes.com/today/2012/07/pertussis-vaccines-may-wear-off-sooner-than-thought-officials-say/

As to vaccine exemptions for DTaP and Tdap in Washington State, it was reported by Dr. Debolt in the National Vaccine Advisory Committee (Health & Human Services) June 2012 meeting, “that Washington continues to have high vaccination rates and vaccine exemptions for school age children overall were only 4%. With regard to Tdap 6th grade vaccination requirements, exemptions were reported to be in decline – meaning higher vaccine uptake.” http://tinyurl.com/7vl9scz

The fact that Pertussis vaccine immunity is short lived is not news to CDC. A similar 2010 California study, examining cases in that state’s outbreak, also found that the majority of cases of pertussis/whooping cough were among those fully vaccinated and most cases occurred in children under age 12. Despite the attempt made here to place the blame on unvaccinated children, these findings might lead one to conclude that this vaccine has simply failed, in that it often is not capable of producing even short term immunity to Pertussis.

In the California study it was noted, [Witt had expected to see the illnesses center around unvaccinated kids, knowing they are more vulnerable to the disease."We started dissecting the data. What was very surprising was the majority of cases were in fully vaccinated children. That's what started catching our attention," said Witt.] ] http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/03/us-whoopingcough-idUSBRE8320TM20120403

For a commentary on Whooping Cough Outbreaks and Vaccine Failures go to; http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/July-2010/Whooping-Cough-Outbreaks-Vaccine-Failures.aspx